A campaign in which the dreams of potential students come true, has bagged Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) another award.
The integrated “Dream Starter” campaign to encourage school leavers to study at NMMU landed its strategic design agency, Boomtown, a bronze Assegai at the country’s top annual advertising and marketing awards in Johannesburg.
Video clips of would-be students enjoying their dream careers were posted on YouTube as part of a campaign to engage young people in discovering their dreams and ambitions.
“NMMU is about realising dreams and equipping students for successful futures. This campaign made it real and contributed towards a definite increase in applications to the institution,” said Pieter Swart, director of Marketing and Corporate Relations at NMMU.
This award, the second for Boomtown in a week, follows eight awards that the university won at the institution of higher learning’s recent Marketing, Advancement and Communication in Education (MACE) Excellence Awards in Cape Town. Earlier this year, NMMU also won an international award for the viral marketing of a flash mob staged by the NMMU choir at Greenacres Shopping Centre. In the Dream Starter campaign, four of many, many potential students who had placed their written dream on NMMU’s dream wall during Open Day in May, were filmed enjoying their dream career.
The students are:
Music student hopeful Prayleen Laminie of Chatty High School was surprised by South African group Freshly Ground at her home, and then spent the day recording with them in a studio.
Alexander Road High School’s Kayla Draai was whisked off to Cape Town to join SABC 3′s Expresso team for the morning. She even presented the day’s weather report.
Brandwag’s Tiaan Strydom, who is set on studying Nature Conservation at NMMU’s George Campus, was called out of assembly at his Uitenhage school to spend the day at the five-star Hopewell Game Reserve, near Nanaga
Noluvuyo Nkobo was surprised when AlgoaFM’s Charlton Tobias knocked on her door in Motherwell with an invitation for her to spend a morning in the studio with the Daron Mann Breakfast show team. The Masiphantisane High School learner gave listeners their traffic news that day.
Apart from the video clips and hosting of Open Day for prospective students and their parents, posters and newspaper advertising using QR codes were used to further drive the campaign via social media.
Boomtown’s creative director Andrew Mackenzie said of the campaign: “Working with the university has been truly rewarding. The creativity that we are allowed to run with excites the whole team”.
He said the Dream Starter campaign already has an estimated media value of R581 000 and a return on investment of 444%.
“Applications have already increased by 22%, meaning that 29 748 have the opportunity of making their dreams come true,” he said.
